


June 15th, 1999

by sarahgene12



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 14:07:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8105320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahgene12/pseuds/sarahgene12
Summary: Al Calavicci has stayed with Project Quantum Leap while almost everyone else has left. He still believes in Sam Beckett, but he's having a hard time believing Sam will ever come home. Sam's been gone for ten years, and Al is ready to go home.





	

June 15, 1999. 

Rear Admiral Albert Calavicci fastens the last button of his uniform, and straightens his cap. He stares at himself in the mirror, running the palm of his hand along the line of his jaw. He’s never seen himself look so exhausted. So old. 

He’s sixty-five today, officially. There was no stopping it. With one last unassuming glance at his reflection, he switches off the lights and steps out into the hall. 

The project halls are quiet, anymore, with so few of them left. It’s the first time the place has actually felt like a cave, buried deep underground with only the simulation of sunlight. Al’s footsteps echo on the stone floor as he walks alone to the end of the hall. To the room he hopes he’ll never have to see again, after today. 

“Admiral. Wait.” 

Dr. Beeks lays a gentle hand on his shoulder, her voice cool and kind. He turns to her, attempting a friendly smile and feeling the first sharp ache in his chest. 

“Good morning, Verbena. I’m surprised to see you in so early, I thought—”

“May we speak a moment, Admiral?” 

Al sighed, letting his shoulders droop. “I was gonna ask you the same question. I hate to do it, you know, but listen—”

She’s smiling at him as if she already knows. He’s reminded briefly of his mother. 

“You’re going to ask my permission to leave, aren’t you?”

Al raises an eyebrow. He’s less surprised that she’s guessed his intentions than he is to see she isn’t upset. He nods solemnly. 

“I was waiting to see if anything was gonna come outta Gushie’s last test, you know, if he could actually bring Sam back with the—the retrieval— retrospective— doohickey.”

Verbena’s expression changes to one of sympathy, and almost immediately Al feels the urge to turn and march straight back to his room. He’s never liked anyone to look at him that way. 

“But that was six months ago, what’s kept you here until then, until now? The last chance we thought we had to retrieve Dr. Beckett was blocked nearly four years ago, and there was even less of a chance it would work any better this time.” 

Al straightens his back, standing stiff at attention. He feels a hard, huge clump of something trying to force its way up his throat; it feels like he’s swallowed a wadded up gym sock. He focuses intensely on the empty air just to the left of Dr. Beeks’ ear, blinking fast to keep the tears at bay. 

“I believed in Sam Beckett, Dr. Beeks. I believed that between his incredible mind and Ziggy, and all the lab rats we had down here that we could actually find a way to get him back. And I watched him almost get killed over and over again, and put himself on the front lines for people who were never grateful, who never knew he was somebody—” he choked, wiping furiously at his eyes with a hand Verbena could tell even in those quick moments was shaking. He coughed once, twice. Swallowed. 

“He was somebody special, Dr. Beeks,” he finished, gasping. 

The good doctor’s heart broke to look at him. She’d placed a bet with herself a couple of months back, when the last of the other scientists left. She knew that even if she and Gushie were to abandon the project, to leave, Al Calavicci would not. He didn’t even know how to run Ziggy by himself, but she knew that wouldn’t stop him. He would be the last, if it came to that. 

She pulled the admiral close, embracing him. Though he’d never been shy about finding her attractive, even in front of Tina, that wasn’t the way he held her now. He clung to her, shaking with the effort it took not to break down completely. Lord knows she’d done her share of that already, alone in her room, where the men couldn’t see her.

“Sam is still alive, Admiral. He may never return to us, but as long as he has even just the few of us left to support him, we won’t lose him completely.” She paused for a moment, then spoke softly, less than an inch away from Al’s ear. 

“You are free to take your leave.”

Al withdrew from her, tugging on the hems of his uniform to flatten any wrinkles. He took a deep breath. Exhaled. Nodded curtly. 

“I’m just gonna…let Gushie know I’m goin’, first. Maybe give the old circuit board a swift kick in the keester.” 

Dr. Beeks smiled again. “Give Ziggy some hell for me, too.” 

Something in Al’s face told her he’d heard her, but he didn’t smile, or wink, or do anything of the things she’d grown used to Al Calavicci doing when he left her. He just turned on his heels, flipped his ID card at the scanner in an easy, automatic motion, and entered the lab one last time. 

After counting to ten in her head, Verbena Beeks did the same.   
“Good morning, Admiral Calavicci. Don’t you look handsome?”

Ziggy greeted him in her usual way. For the first time he could remember, he ignored her. His attention was held by Gushie, who was standing in front of the imaging chamber door, and hadn’t turned to acknowledge him. 

“Gushie, what’s going on?” inquired Dr. Beeks. Al jumped at the sound of her voice. She stepped forward and stopped beside him, touching his arm for a moment. 

“Gushie?” 

“I think you’ll find our resident sufferer of fetor oris at a loss for words, Doctor. In his case this could be a good thing.”

There were only three humans present in the lab. Only three had stayed. 

Verbena felt a terrible jolt of hope jump into her heart; she strode forward, past Gushie, whose already buggish eyes looked in serious danger of popping out of his bright orange head. 

“Beeks?” Al’s voice sounded small. 

She didn’t turn to look at him. Carefully, as if the floor would cave from underneath her at any moment, she walked forward, to the imaging chamber door. There was no indication of anyone inside. The lights were dark. The small group in the room was lit only by the circuit board’s calculating polychromaton and the slow, blinking red light on the panel in front of her now. 

“Admiral? Would you come here please?” She spoke without looking at him, but she could feel Al approach, and stop beside her. He had that stiff way about him again, but his chin trembled. 

“I want you to press that switch, Admiral. I cannot guarantee anything, but I want you to press it.” 

Slowly, Al obeyed, swiping his hat from his head to clench it in his other hand. He took the two steps up to the chamber door, standing before it as he had before every single one of Sam’s leaps. Unshakably. 

Al pulled the switch. 

The door whooshed open. 

Sam Beckett stepped through the door of the imaging chamber for the first time in ten years, and took Al’s hand.

“Sam?”   
“Hiya, Al. “

A second more, and Al felt himself pulled into Sam’s arms, held so tightly he felt the soles of his shoes leave the floor; his fingers played clumsily over Sam’s back, unable to believe this was real, that he was real.

“Oh, Al. I’m back. I’m here.” 

“Sam.”

Finally, Al let his hands roam to the back of Sam’s head, and he buried his fingers deep in his hair. He felt himself sob. He felt Sam’s tears wetting the shoulder of his Naval whites. 

When Sam finally set him down again, it wasn’t enough. Al reached out and pressed his hands to Sam’s cheeks, feeling his skin, feeling its warmth, the stickiness of his tears. 

Sam’s grin looked fit to split; he held on to Al’s shoulders, he ran his hands up and down the length of Al’s arms; they could feel one another, for the first time in so long. For the first time since it started to matter that they couldn’t. 

For a long time, there wasn’t anyone else in the room. For a long time, nothing else, no one else mattered to Al, except Sam. They held each other, and wept, and laughed. 

When finally they were interrupted, it was by Ziggy. “Well, well. Happy Birthday, Admiral Calavicci.”

Before Al could thank her, Sam swept him up again, and with one hand on Al’s back, the other cradling the back of his head, he kissed him. 

Behind them, Dr. Verbena Beeks wept.


End file.
